Page 68 of Sin Like the Devil

Ripley hugs her knees tighter, keeping her eyes averted. “I’m aware.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

Her gaze is stuck on the same impenetrable forest I was just studying. Yearning. Reaching. Perhaps even imagining a life beyond these chain-link fences. I hate how entrancing her big, hazel eyes are, brimming with so much grief right now, it’s making me doubt myself.

I hate her.

I’m supposed to hate her.

But part of me still wonders what she’d be like out there—beyond the roles we’ve constructed for ourselves. Or rather, we’ve forced ourselves into, slicing apart and re-stitching our souls to fit into an unrecognisable caricature of our former selves.

“Having a fucking shower. Leave, Lennox.”

With the rain pouring down on her, she looks lost and broken. I see the same gaping wound in her that I feel tugging at my insides. A black hole sucking in all light and hope. Neither can survive this place.

I despise the fact that the only one who could ever understand how I feel is the one person I hate more than anything. Ripley knows better than anyone the price we must pay to rule in this world.

She’s sacrificed her own soul along the way too.

Are we so different?

“Go!” Her voice cracks a little.

I lick my dry lips, an alien sensation swarming in my gut. “She didn’t deserve what we did to her, you know.”

Swiping dripping hair from her face, Ripley peers up at me. Chapped lips parted, those devilish eyes are blown wider than usual. She gapes at me like Bigfoot has just stomped through the woods to greet her.

“I know that,” she cuts back.

“But we did it anyway.”

“Yeah,” Ripley deadpans. “You did.”

“I’d be lying if I said I was sorry.” My eyes bore into hers. “Holly had something I wanted. So I took it from her. That was a price I was willing to pay.”

Her stare shimmering with unshed tears, she doesn’t even flinch at my confession. I’m sure she already knows that I feel no remorse for our actions. Not anymore. It’s a luxury I cannot afford.

“Why are you telling me this, Lennox?”

“It’s just that we have good reason to hate each other.”

“Too right. I’ve never hated anyone or anything as much as I hate you.”

“Not even Xander?” I can’t help but ask.

Ripley scoffs. “Xander is an animal wrapped in human skin. But only one of you walked out of that bedroom and left my best friend swinging from a noose.”

Yeah. Me.

I’d never admit it to her, but I still think about that night. The cruel words of encouragement I whispered to Holly. Threats I made. Hell, even the sound of her choked, gurgling sounds. She didn’t achieve a clean neck break.

The makeshift rope cinched around her throat instead. All while I stood there, chanting to myself that it had to be done. Only the powerful survive these institutes. She had the key to our survival.

I refused to lose the family I’d found in Xander—the second chance that caring for him, another victim just like Daisy, gave me. It didn’t take much to see the same brokenness in him that I never spotted in Daisy. Not until it was too late.

“I did what I had to do to survive.”

“Killing an innocent did that?” Ripley’s nose wrinkles in disgust. “You make me sick.”

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